


i will follow you home (although my lips are blue and i'm cold)

by zenithaurora



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - No Avatar (Avatar TV), Alternate Universe - Pirates, Alternative Unirverse, Bending (Avatar), F/F, POV Toph Beifong, Swearing, WLW Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29257359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenithaurora/pseuds/zenithaurora
Summary: Toph runs away from home and meets Suki at a bar.
Relationships: Toph Beifong/Suki
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: Winter ATLA Femslash Week 2021





	i will follow you home (although my lips are blue and i'm cold)

Toph walks by the polishing steel with her head down, hiding from the shawl of the nightfall with a cloak that she stole from one of her maids. The crisp air bites its way through her cheeks and wrists, the only parts of her body that are bare to the dire conditions of a cold winter night. The moon is high on the horizon, its beauty concealed by the mist and the soot coming from the cigars that close bystanders are smoking. She never has never known about the beauty of the moon, but one her servants have confessed one night that it’s the most romantic sight.

She makes sure not to bump into any stranger that cross her way, knowing that the presence of a noble might attract the wrong type of behaviors. Moreover, if any of these people find out that she chose to leave and that there is a reward on her head for whoever manages to catch her and bring her home safe to her parents, she knows she will never make it out of here.

 _Home_.

She tastes the bitter words in her mouth and almost spits them out. It feels like poison to even consider the prison she used to reside a home.

A man is standing at the entrance of the bar. Well, she supposes it is a bar, but it feels more like some arid soil surrounded by some timeworn walls. _The guy is probably there to keep any brawler out_ , she muses. She doesn’t look like someone who would frequent bars, not with her manicured hands or her unblemished skin. However, Toph doesn’t care; those things are her parents’ doing and wishes, not hers.

She is ready to turn a new page.

She takes a breath through her nose and enters the grimy, wasted bar with all the confidence she can muster. She has never been outside the confines of the Beifong estate, but she has never pictured a bar sounding and feeling like this.

Taking in consideration this is a place she heard a lot of commoners visit on their free time, Toph expected it to be… something else.

The place it’s swarmed to its brims with a blustering and cackling crowd of people _,_ making it difficult for her to feel anything concrete, but she does take notice of the putrid smell of everything in the place, and the smothering sensation caused by the cigars. Everything smells like it has overstayed its welcome on Earth and now it’s just waiting for the soil to swallow it and make it reborn. All things considered, the place it’s absolutely disgusting.

Toph loves it.

She doesn’t know how or who to ask for some rice wine. She tries to feel the ground, but the steps and heartbeats of the commoners are all the same to her. A man approaches her and asks what can he do for her.

It doesn’t take seismic sense to know that the man is sceptic of her reasoning to be here. Even if she didn’t stand out for the condition of her pristine clothes ( _especially_ when comparing to the likely state of his threadbare rugs), she is distinguishable tiny, to the point that most people think she is twelve. They are not that far off, but she doesn’t take a liking of people that belittle for her age, or her low height, or her blindness. It doesn’t matter if she checks all the conditions for why someone might think she is weak; she is not, and will never be weak.

“A glass of rice wine” she orders, lowering the pitch of her voice as to make herself sound older. She still keeps most of her face hidden by the cloak.

Once the man brings her drink, she can finally wind down. She keeps her feet planted to the ground, trying to decipher people out of the bustling crowd. There are a lot of dancing couples, but one seems to stand out, judging by the way other couples have decided to stay still to admire their expert movements. On the contrary, there is a couple (or is it three people?) that don’t seem to know how to dance and are stuck to the floor, awkwardly swinging off the beat. She can also notice two heartbeats skyrocketing on a corner away from the dancefloor, one of them being a little higher up, pressed against the wall.

People are dancing and passing drinks freely, unaware of the fact that a rich noble like her it’s among them, quiet in the shadows. Here, she is a nobody among other nobodies, and Toph couldn’t be happier.

Another person shows up out of nowhere and sits down on the chair in front of her. The stranger makes a bold move; they grab the glass that Toph is holding and gulp the content down in one swift motion. Toph shakes the cup and notices it’s empty.

“Excuse me! What the fuck?” Toph rages. In another circumstances, she would admire the stranger for such an amazing feat. However, she _paid_ for that drink, and she doesn’t take a liking of people that steal from her right under her nose.

The stranger just snickers in front of her. Her laugh sounds somewhat feminine but also a deeper tone that she wouldn’t usually associate with women.

“Sorry, I didn’t know how to present myself,” the stranger admits, “I’m Suki”.

Toph scoffs. Who the fuck does she thinks she is to show up uninvited, drink her wine and then pretend like she didn’t do any of the two things?

“I saw you here on your own and I thought of talking to you” Suki continues.

_Well, that makes one of us._

Tense silence lingers in the air. It takes almost a minute for any of them to speak.

“Are you… not going to present yourself?” she asks.

“Why should I tell you my name after you stole my drink?” Toph snaps.

Suki just bursts out laughing.

“If you want another drink, you just need to tell me,” she says and gets closer to her. Her breath is hot against the lobe of her ear, making Toph shiver. “I know the owner of the place” Suki whispers.

“That’s the least you owe me,” she growls. “Pay me a drink and then leave;” she lowers her voice, “I want to be alone”.

It seems that Suki’s hearing it’s more powerful than she expected.

“Do you, really?” Suki queries.

“Yes” Toph lies.

Suki snaps her fingers to one of the people working at the bar, and points at the glass in her hand.

“I think you’re lying”.

“How would _you_ know?” Toph retorts. This random girl it’s getting on her last nerve and she won’t hesitate to use her bending on her if she doesn’t leave in this exact moment, consequences be damned.

The girl gets closer to her, her hot breath coming out as a whisper.

“You have powers” Suki affirms.

It’s a simple statement, an accurate certainty, but Toph has never felt this much dread before in her life.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” she states, struggling to keep the fear from showing in her high-pitched tone.

“Your feet”, Suki says. “I mean, I can see you’re blind, but you didn’t struggle with moving around the room without assistance at all and you’re barefoot, so I can only assume that you see through your feet” she clarifies. “Am I wrong?”.

Toph remains silent. She didn’t even last a day without the care of her parents. She was so stupid, so naïve to believe that she could actually escape and live unharmed. She is an idiot.

“Are you going to report me to the authorities?” she asks her.

Long ago, having powers, or the ability to bend the elements, as the scholars like to call it, was considered a blessing in the majority of societies around the globe, to the point that their nations were named after the element the population would usually bend.

However, everything changed when Emperor Ozai ascended to the throne almost two decades ago after the death of his father and his brother, two firebenders. Ever since, he has been prosecuting benders; some were kept prisoners for the rest of their lives, some were publicly executed. One way or another, they were all punished by the mere misfortune of being born.

At first, the rest of the nations presented a resistance to his subjugation. However, as time passed by, more leaders began getting swayed by his charisma and power, and his ideologies were implanted in the roots of every form of government all around the world. The persecution of benders has been relentless ever since, and many have perished under these backwards beliefs.

Toph has been born in the confinements of her massive and luxurious house. In spite of her physical limitations due to her visual imparity, it was obvious she never had a problem getting around the house without bumping into something, a fact that amazed her parents at first. It wasn’t until they discovered Toph manipulating the soil around a small bloom that the Beifongs realized the trouble they were in. Ever since that day, Toph had been kept sheltered in her home, partially to save her from becoming a prisoner, partially because the existence of a monster in their household would bring dishonor to the Beifongs.

She had been protected her entire life, and now, in only one night, she had fucked it all up.

“No” Suki holds her hands, “you can trust me; I won’t report you anywhere. I promise” she insists.

“How can I trust you?” Toph inquires, still skeptical of her intentions.

Suki closes the distance between the two of them by sitting at her side. She lays her arm around her neck and on top of her shoulder.

She whispers into her ear. “I’m the leader of a group of benders”.

Astonished, Toph turns her head. “What do you mean?” she asks.

Suki ponders on the questions for a second. “Can you recognize the bald guy dancing with the pretty girl?”.

“I’m blind” Toph deadpans. 

Suki guffaws, a strident sound breaking through her eardrums. She cringes in pain.

“They are the only people dancing, they are really good at it and people are staring”, Suki describes. When she notices a flash of recognition pass across her face, she continues. “The guy, Aang, can bend air and the girl, Katara, can bend water”.

Toph can sense her eyes widen at her admission. She didn’t even know people could bend air or water!

“Do you know who Ozai’s children are?” Suki questions her.

Toph knows, but she doesn’t understand what they have to do with their conversation.

“They are here”, Suki continues, “their father tried to kill them after he found out they could bend fire;” she sighs, “one of them is scarred”.

Toph doesn’t know what to answer to that. The leader of the anti-bending movement, the man that have created such a devastating set of beliefs that have culminated on the death, imprisonment and torture of so many people all around the world, that same man has two benders for children.

_Destiny it’s a humorous bitch._

“The rest are non benders like me” Suki disrupts her from her thoughts, “there is Sokka, Katara’s brother, and Mai and Ty Lee. They came with Zuko and Azula”.

“An impressive group of people you gathered” Toph recognizes.

“And,” she drawls, “my mother, Kyoshi, could bend earth like you. She even used the same feet technique”.

“So, that’s how you knew” Toph gasps.

Suki giggles besides her and takes her arm off her. “Now you know you can trust me”. A waiter comes with the drink she had previously asked for and takes a few sips to taste it.

 _It’s nice to know that not everyone is up to get you out here,_ Toph thinks with a gentle smile drawn on her face. However, she still has a few questions to ask.

“Still, why are you doing this?” Toph asks. At the lack of an answer, she keeps talking. “Why would you risk your life for a bunch of benders?” she clarifies.

Suki sighs and stirs the liquid content with her index finger, lost in the swirling foam.

“My mother adopted me when I was just a toddler. She didn’t have to, but she did it because there was no one else to take care of me” Suki says.

“It was the right thing to do” Toph affirms.

“It was,” Suki agrees, “and helping benders, even if it’s at the risk of my own life, it’s the right thing to do. That’s why I do it”.

“That it’s really noble of you” Toph acknowledges, amazed by the woman in front of her. Suki’s heartbeat accelerates at the genuine compliment.

A glass of rice wine arrives for Toph and the women drink without exchanging a word between the two of them. The music it’s loud and overwhelming enough that there is no awkward silence lingering in the atmosphere.

“You know,” Suki starts, “you’re not going to last long on your own”.

“Excuse me?” Toph fumes, “I can take care of myself”.

A sad smile forms in Suki’s face. She is thankful that Toph can’t see it. “I know”, she admits, “but even the strongest people need someone to take care of them sometimes”.

Suki gulps what is left of her drink without saying else, leaving Toph to reflect on the words said to her. She has been sheltered her entire life by her parents; she doesn’t want to be someone else’s new burden. She can survive on her own. However, it’s also the first time she has ever heard of other benders like her. She doesn’t think she will ever come across another opportunity like this again. She doesn’t think she will ever cross paths with someone as kind and open-minded as her again.

“Hey,” Suki breaks the silence and grasps her hands, “I’m going to buy some food to store in the boat. We are leaving at the break of dawn; if you want to come with us,” she kisses her cheek and Toph blushes, “just go to the port and you will find me”.

Suki leaves and joins her crew, leaving Toph all by herself sitting on the stool. She imagines what it would be like to be with people like her, to be with people that would understand her and wouldn’t consider her a monster or the family dirtiest secret, with people that wouldn’t judge.

When the twilight gives in to the first rays of sunlight, Toph goes to the port. If judging by Suki’s exulted reaction when she hugs her and the cheerful greetings from everyone else, Toph thinks she might have chosen right.

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on 'i wanna be your girlfriend' by girl in red.


End file.
